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Month: January 2013

-Horrific Knits did hit 350 followers earlier this week. I’m in the planning stages of what to make for the next giveaway. The giveaway should with any luck be up by this time next week, so stay tuned!

-The next round of Inspired Weekends will be up tomorrow so stop by and link up!

-This has been pretty quiet on the blog. I’ve been busy with offline obligations, plus I’m still dealing with that chipped tooth. I think that what is giving me pain isn’t the tooth though which may or may not be a good thing, I’m not sure. I made the appointment though! Anyway, the blog should pick up again soon.

This month’s Pinterest activity-

-The crockpot bread post I published this summer is still the most popular pinned post.

Baba Yaga set the girl to spinning and the boy to hauling water. The girl cried as she spun and her tears became mice.

Your grandmother gave you cookies, they said. And a slice of ham. Give us the cookies and the cat the ham and we’ll both help you.

The girl gave the mice the cookies and went looking for the cat. She found her brother sobbing next to a sieve and a vat of water. He had been told to fill the vat with the sieve-a completely hopeless task.

A flock of birds flew by and sang,

Give us crumbs and we’ll help you.

The girl scattered crumbs on the ground and the birds sang,

Clay and water, water and clay, these two things will save the day!

The children, realizing what the birds meant, packed the sieve full of clay and soon had the vat filled with water.

Searching for the cat, they found him sitting near the door of the hut. The girl fed him the ham her grandmother had given her and begged him to help her.

Steal a towel, steal a comb. When you run from Baba Yaga drop the towel and it’ll turn into a river. If that’s not enough to stop her, drop the comb and it’ll turn into a forest.

I took a commission earlier this winter that asked me to knit fingerless gloves without gussets or thumbs.

I know that some people do prefer mitts that way, and I’ve found that this is a great pattern for modifying with cables.

These are a very fast, easy knit so if you’re trying to learn how to knit in the round without worrying about increases, this may be the pattern for you. If you’re interested in a pattern with gusstets and thumbs, please see University.

When worked plain, each mitt is worked the same. If adding a cable you want to mirror the thumbs, so one is worked at the beginning of a round and the other is worked after.

Mercury

For sizes small (large). Instructions that are not bracketed are for both sizes.

Large takes a little over 100 yards, small takes a little less. Add slightly more yarn when adding a cable.

A man lived happily in Russia with his wife. The gods were happy with them, and blessed them with children-a boy and a girl.

However, as sometimes happens, the man’s wife caught ill and died. The man was left with his two children to raise by himself. Eventually, the man thought that it would be best for his children to have a mother and so he courted a local woman to be his bride.

The man, his children, and his new wife settled into life together. The gods were pleased again and his new wife gave him more children. However, all was not well as the new wife slowly became jealous of her stepchildren, whom she feared were taking attention-and inheritance-away from her own children.

Eventually the stepmother could stand it no more and told the boy and the girl,

Dear children go into the woods and seek out the house with the chicken feet. The woman who lives there is my grandmother. Tell her I sent you and she will treat you kindly.

The boy, thinking there was no reason to distrust her, wanted to go straight to the chicken-legged hut. The girl, sensing danger, brought him instead to their father’s mother who exclaimed,

That evil woman is sending you straight to a witch! Baba Yaga lives in the chicken-legged hut. You must go there but I fear for your safety!

But I do have one piece of advice-no matter who you come across, do well by them, be kind, gentle, and helpful. Harm no one.

Having eaten the children set out to the forest. They soon found the hut-and it was not hard to miss-the hut sat on chicken’s feet. The children cried,

Let us in! Let us in!

And the hut lifted on its feet and turned so the door faced them. Inside rested the witch. Sensing the children, she demanded to know why they had come.

Our mother sent us to help you,

Came the reply.

Fine, said the with. But be warned-if I am pleased with you I will treat you well. Anger me and I’ll eat you.

I keep wanting to call this yarn Amazon, but the color is actually called Rainforest.

I’m not sure I actually like this yarn. It knits up much more to a sport weight with my normal gauge than a worsted weight and it has a vaguely strange, brittle hand to it. But I do like how the colors work up.

I wasn’t sure how the colors would work with my skin tone because I normally do better with warm tones than cool, but I think the greens shift yellow enough that it works.

And yes, for the record, I did pledge APO (F05, EN).

Anyway, I think the only thing that I would have done differently is that where Selkie has enough length that the top flops a little even if I’m covering with my hair down (like in the photo), Rainforest sort of sticks up in the back. It doesn’t do it if I’m going for a full cover with my hair pulled up and all it takes is a little arranging so the floppy bit stays down.

How about an actual fairy tale for this installment of Sunday Legends?

Tam Lin is actually one of my earliest loves in the ‘faerie’ tale catagory. This was one of the first ‘dark’ faerie tales that I heard-the Brothers Grimm did a lot of dark work but I didn’t grow up with them. It was Disney for me all the way and even as a kid I wanted something with a little more teeth.

And teeth this one has in spades. The story of Tam Lin is a traditional Scottish ballad, though the imagery isn’t limited to Scotland. Janet, a beautiful young girl, is warned to stay away from Carterhaugh because a certain male elf (or faerie or magick man or what have you) has a habit of doing what he pleases with any woman passing through that area. She goes anyway to seek out a rose (or other pretty flower). Tam (the Tam Lin of the title) finds her there and demands to know what she’s doing in his woods-wherein she informs him that they’re actually her woods.

Returning home Janet discovers she’s pregnant. Knowing exactly who’s fault this is, she goes back to the woods looking for Tam. Finding him, she pronounces that she’s not leaving without him-except there’s a problem. Tam was originally a knight who caught the eye of Queen Mab. And what the faeries want they get.

Challenging the Queen Janet is told that she can leave with the father of her child if she’s capable of holding onto him for an entire night. In some versions he’s the seven year sacrfice and Janet has to hold him throughout the Wild Hunt. In others, she has to bed him all night and keep holding him. In any case, the Queen forces him to change form from wolf to boar to tiger.

Janet however is a stubborn creature and in the end goes home with a new husband, released from the faerie queen’s bond.

This is a free for all style link up-there are no rules! The only guideline is that each entry should be your own content-but feel free to link up round ups, link parties, giveaways, diy, recipes, tutorials, favorite entries from your archives, recipes, anything that you would like to share!

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